Al-Mutanabbi Street in New York

 

Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here is an exhibition of artists' reponses to the car bombing on 5 March 2007 of Al-Mutanabbi Street, the cultural and intellectual centre of Baghdad. Approximately 260 artists have contributed artists books to this project, and this major travelling exhibition will be on display in many countries and venues over the next few years.  The Center for Book Arts in New York have organised an exhibition of all the books to be held simultaneously over five venues for the next few months.

 

Centre for Book Arts, New York

Columbia University Libraries

Alwan for the Arts

International Print Centre New York

Poet's House

 

My book for this project Absence is included (although I do not know at which particular venue it is on display) along with the books of a number of other Australian artists - Janis Nedela, Peter Lyssiotis, Monica Oppen, Tim Mosely, Penny Peckham, Sara Bowen, Deanna Hitti, Heather Matthew, Amanda Williams, Peter Annand, Marie-Therese Wisniowski, JP Willis, and Antonietta Covino-Beehre.

 

You can browse the galleries of artists books in this exhibition here.

 

PS Thanks to Anna Mavromatis for letting me know that her book, Sara Bowen's and mine are all on exhibition at the Center for Book Arts.

  

 

The River City goes to New York

Two books are just about to make their way to the Center for Book Arts in New York for the exhibition Book as Witness: The Artist's Response, to be held from 11th July to 22nd September. 

The River City is a book I made last year following the floods in Brisbane which affected the river suburb I live in.  I was one of the lucky ones who was an eyewitness but escaped being inundated.  Maria Pisano, the curator of the exhibition asked me if I could also send a copy of The Battle Within (which seems to be having a second life this year) and she asked Monica Oppen for her book Stabat Mater.  Maria had seen both these books in Monica's great catalogue The Silent Scream. Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists which is available not only in Australia but in the United States too.

PS 20th May : Thanks to news from Amanda, The Silent Scream by Monica Oppen and Peter Lyssiotis has won a gold medal for Independent Writing/Publishing in the 2012 Independent Publishers Book Awards open to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books in English for the North American market.